Poets Get Imprisoned for Speaking ‘Ruffian’ Language

On 13 December Tsentralny district court of Minsk sentenced the Belarusian poets Siarzhuk Minskevich and Ales Turovich to three days of jail and fined Zmitser Vishniou 175 000 Belarusian rubles (about 81 USD).

The poets were detained by riot police near Kastrychnitskaya Square in Minsk on 12 December. ‘We were simply sitting on a bench and speaking Belarusian, which caused the dissent of the policemen’, stated the poets at the trial.

Bear in mind that in the evening of 12 December an unauthorized action For Independent Belarus! took place in Kastrychnitskaya Square. Some of its participants were severely beaten by the police. A youth activist Zmitser Khvedaruk was hospitalized with brain concussion and closed cranial trauma.